It was a typical warm June day when the Phoenix Suns introduced the 23rd head coach in franchise history, Jordan Ott. The setting was small and intentional, a low stage set on the hardwood inside the Suns practice facility at 44th Street and Camelback. Ott walked into the gym with Brian Gregory at his side. Two columns of chairs packed with media waited for him. His family was there too. So were a handful of players in the middle of workouts who paused to hear their new coach speak.
When it was time
for Ott to address the room, following Gregory’s introduction, I found myself genuinely impressed. Like many, I came in knowing very little about him. I did not have his résumé memorized. The years as a video coordinator under Mike Budenholzer. The time spent as an assistant alongside Steve Nash. The Michigan State connection. The ties were there, even if they were not widely discussed.
Then he spoke. And once he did, you listened. There was an immediate seriousness to him, paired with an ease in how he articulated the game. He processed basketball in real time, calmly and deliberately, and it was obvious he understood not only what he wanted to say, but why it mattered.
“We’re going to move bodies,” Ott stated, “and then we’re going to find ways to get extra possessions. So we’re going to crash. We know how important it is to win the possession game.”
“Defensively, I want to play aggressive,” Ott added.
49 games into the season, Ott has lived up to what he sought to achieve. The Suns are a team that no one expected to be competitive, but they have been more than competitive. They are kicking ass and taking names.
You can look at the roster constructed by Brian Gregory and give him his flowers. He deserves them. Navigating a reality where you move on from Kevin Durant and buy out Bradley Beal, paying him to no longer be in the building, is not easy. That is real organizational turbulence, the kind that can sink a season before it starts.
Still, none of it matters if the ship does not have a captain. An effective one. Someone capable of taking a roster with seven players under the age of 25 and molding them as basketball players. Molding them as men. Teaching them how to read the game, how to absorb it analytically, and how to consistently put themselves in positions to succeed.
That is what Jordan Ott has done.
“He’s a player’s coach for sure,” Collin Gillespie recently said of Ott in an interview with HoopsHype. “He knows how to talk to players, but also knows when to be serious when we need to lock in. He’s awesome in terms of instilling confidence in the group. He’s not too much of a rah-rah guy where he’s loud. He’s always kind of serious. He’s awesome in terms of watching film and knowing what he’s talking about. He has the highest level of basketball knowledge. He has a super high IQ. He’s been great, and we love playing for him, and that’s why we go out every night and play hard.”
“Coach Ott runs a system that instills that in everybody,” Gillespie added. “That’s why we love playing for him, and we go out there and compete and play hard every night.”
“He’s a great guy,” Mark Williams said. “Basketball-wise, he’s a real genius of the game with our principles that we have in place that are solid, and we’re sticking to them. We’re playing fast, physical, and hard. We’re winning the possession game and playing with pace. I think establishing that as our basis, and then our sets and principles from there, is how we’ll grow. Defensively, we’re communicating and moving as one and being decisive.”
Yes, those words said in June are ringing true in January. The Suns are second in the league in steals, fifth in defensive rating, fifth in offensive rebounding, and third in points off turnovers. They currently sit at sixth in the Western Conference standings, but they are a mere half-game out of the fourth seed and three games back of the two seed.
Will Ott get the proper recognition at the end of the year? It remains to be seen. There is still so much ahead of the Suns, and so many chapters left unwritten. You do not do this for the awards. But when the awards show up at your doorstep, you do not turn them away either.
Right now, the Coach of the Year odds tell an interesting story. Ott sits in second place on FanDuel at +400. At the top of the board is Detroit’s JB Bickerstaff, a coach whose team the Suns took to the woodshed three nights ago.
In the end, the awards are secondary. Success shows itself in different ways, and what we are watching this season is a successful Suns team. They are on pace to win 50 games. Will they get there? That part of the story is still being written. The author, though, is already clear. It is Jordan Ott.
As I sat in the media room Thursday night for the pregame and postgame interviews against the Pistons, I found myself just as impressed as I was back in June, when Ott first walked into that stale gym. He is the third coach I have watched in these settings over the past three years, and it is obvious he enjoys this part of the job. He likes explaining the thinking. He welcomes questions about strategy, about decisions, about feel.
He even joked about an exchange he had with Dillon Brooks during the game.
“He told me I sucked, in so many words,” Ott said while donning a ‘Dillon the Villain’ shirt. “That I messed up the last couple possessions on who to get involved with him, and he was right…I was wrong.” Players. Coach.
What Ott brings goes beyond the X’s or O’s. He brings stability to an organization that needed it. He brings mentorship, understanding, and confidence to the players he coaches. He brings a relentless analytical obsession with the game, paired with a genuine passion for it, and he knows how to download that into his players. He has done that all season long.
And that is the part that lingers. Not the odds. Not the noise that will eventually follow. What lingers is the “alignment”. Words said in June are turning into habits by January. Principles turning into possessions. Possessions turning into wins.
This Suns season is not about surprise, it is about intention, and Jordan Ott has authored that from the top down. He has given this organization clarity, given young players a framework, and given a team without shortcuts an identity it believes in. However this season ultimately ends, it will be remembered as the moment the Suns found their footing again, with a coach who knew exactly who he was, what he wanted, and how to bring everyone else along with him.
